How many chances can Steve Ballmer have?

If Windows 8 PC's (whateaver sales of them are left), laptops, Tablets, convertibles (guess they are a different class these days), Windows Phone 8, the new IE, Skype, the new Outlook, and the XBOX and it's brand (music, videos, pod casts ECT.) all add up to great growth and strong cross platform profits, everyone can agree Mr. Ballmer should stay, right?

If not, we all can agree MS needs new leadership, right?

So the short answer:

Steve Ballmer more or less gets one more chance. There is too much invested in this launch and Microsoft has been pointing at this time frame for too long to pretend that he will not get credit if it works or get get the blame if it doesn't.

It looks to me like Ballmer is doing a pretty good job steering MS in the right direction as opposed to clinging to old ways.

Keep in mind, that for the past 10 yrs Microsoft was pretty much handcuffed by the DOJ because of their Anti-Trust ruling. MS could not integrate their separate products and systems because it was prohibited. All the while, the competition was doing exactly that.

The fact that just a year after the expiration of the judgement, MS is back to being in the picture and in the process of tying highly complex systems together is pretty awesome.

I feel stupid for asking (first time I feel stupid today!), but WHAT judgment? I truly did not know anything about this. Who sued MS that they couldn't integrate their systems???

If Windows 8 PC's (whateaver sales of them are left), laptops, Tablets, convertibles (guess they are a different class these days), Windows Phone 8, the new IE, Skype, the new Outlook, and the XBOX and it's brand (music, videos, pod casts ECT.) all add up to great growth and strong cross platform profits, everyone can agree Mr. Ballmer should stay, right?

If not, we all can agree MS needs new leadership, right?

So the short answer:

Steve Ballmer more or less gets one more chance. There is too much invested in this launch and Microsoft has been pointing at this time frame for too long to pretend that he will not get credit if it works or get get the blame if it doesn't.

Windows Phone 8 does not sale much, the Xbox was seriously flawed at launch, Windows 8 is reported to sale lower than expectation, IE 10 falls short on the HTML5, Skype's quality fell down when Microsoft bought it and the Surface even if it sales well is again seriously flawed... the Zune and Kin...

As for now people a quite unhappy with the lack of good HTML5, the lack of flash player.

Uh... no. The HTML5 on WP8 is great, and nobody cares about Flash except a hard-core group of legacy die-hards.

Longtime Microsoft people have to understand that change is difficult, but necessary. The desktop is going to die, and if it isn't Microsoft who kills it, it will be someone else. It will go away. Flash is going away. A lot of what you're used to is going away.

The real question is -- will Microsoft cannibalize itself and lead the charge to the new technologies and ways of doing things, or will it sit in the past and rage against the future, while the future eats its lunch? Ballmer seems quite committed to leading the charge -- and that's a good thing.

And the challenge for longtime Windows users is this -- change or resist change. I remember lots of people in my Atari ST days as a teenager who swore that they'd never buy anything new and would stick with STs, TTs and Falcons forever, because Windows lacked pre-emptive multitasking, or rapid SLIP, or proper desk accessories. Those are all obsolete concepts, and they've all long since moved on... and if Atari had led rather than followed, perhaps I'd be using an STZ or some such machine today instead of a Dell and a MacBook.

Uh... no. The HTML5 on WP8 is great, and nobody cares about Flash except a hard-core group of legacy die-hards.

Longtime Microsoft people have to understand that change is difficult, but necessary. The desktop is going to die, and if it isn't Microsoft who kills it, it will be someone else. It will go away. Flash is going away. A lot of what you're used to is going away.

The real question is -- will Microsoft cannibalize itself and lead the charge to the new technologies and ways of doing things, or will it sit in the past and rage against the future, while the future eats its lunch? Ballmer seems quite committed to leading the charge -- and that's a good thing.

And the challenge for longtime Windows users is this -- change or resist change. I remember lots of people in my Atari ST days as a teenager who swore that they'd never buy anything new and would stick with STs, TTs and Falcons forever, because Windows lacked pre-emptive multitasking, or rapid SLIP, or proper desk accessories. Those are all obsolete concepts, and they've all long since moved on... and if Atari had led rather than followed, perhaps I'd be using an STZ or some such machine today instead of a Dell and a MacBook.

This is true BUT there is a lot of websites that uses flash and until it's dead Microsoft should allow it in its browser to stay competitive... but who am I to talk, right?
And HTML5 on IE 10 scored lower than Chrome which is enough for most people to say "IE 10 does not worth crap" also you have to switch from the Metro-IE10 to the desktop version to see a video that is based on flash player... how annoying is that...

The switch from Flash to HTML5 will not be done by tomorrow simply because Microsoft failed to include it in it's Metro-style IE10.... count at least 2 years before Flash is dead...

The DOJ sued them. The European Union sued them also, i think, and is still after them to this day. It was all a bunch of nonsense related to Microsoft bundling Internet Explorer into the operating system, thus allegedly stifling internet browser competition.

Windows Phone 8 does not sale much, the Xbox was seriously flawed at launch, Windows 8 is reported to sale lower than expectation, IE 10 falls short on the HTML5, Skype's quality fell down when Microsoft bought it and the Surface even if it sales well is again seriously flawed... the Zune and Kin...

What a load of troll garbage. I don't think I have read so much nonsense in one sentence before.

Wrong. Windows 7 was required mainly because Microsoft realized Vista would never recover from its reputation. From a low-level technical point of view, Vista was the most important update to Windows ever. Much of what we value today wouldn't have been possible without the low level engineering efforts that lead to Windows Vista... Windows RT and WP8 are just some examples. Vista's single biggest problem were hardware vendors who failed to deliver functional drivers in time (nVidia was one of the worst as their difficulties impacted millions of people). Basically, it was a very good and absolutely necessary evolution of the Windows OS, hampered by terrible 3rd party driver support and one ill conceived concept called UAC. Of course the tech media completely fails to understand this, so lots of FUD gets passed around as a result. Internally, Windows 7 is almost identical to Vista, the main difference being that hardware vendors had gotten their drivers working reliably by the time Windows 7 arrived.

Microsoft takes some of the blame in the Vista debacle too. It was not just the hardware vendors' responsibility.

"Microsoft has allowed PC vendors to put stickers on their systems saying that they are "Vista ready," when the system could run only Vista Home Basic, which does not allow many of the core features of Vista to run. The suit maintains that it was unreasonable of Microsoft to assume that every person to whom it was marketing Vista could understand the system requirements.

PCs need at least 512MB of RAM, a processor capable of operating at 800MHz or faster and a graphics processor that is DirectX 9-capable to be classified as "Vista capable." However, the suit alleges that it was not clear from Microsoft's advertising and marketing around Vista that while a system may be advertised as "capable," it may be incapable of running many of the advertised features of Vista, such as the Aero desktop."

In Ballmer's talks on stage, he always seems awkward and uptight. Granted he doesn't have the same qualities of selling a product to the public like Jobs, to me I think he just needs to relax a bit more.

I did small business support on Vista for Microsoft. Besides the hardware driver issues, they did a poor job of marketing it. Told one of the execs that was down for training that. He asked how. Told him why didn't they publicize more about features like ready boost, snap and other such things like scrolling through active windows. Features that people like about Windows 7 but weren't really pushed in Vista. They stressed more about bit locker and security, which the home consumer isn't worried about.

As a share holder, yes, not good. I do not think that is what interests the OP though. I'm uncertain others could have done much better, as MS made a lot of concessions to avoid being split up, which neither google nor apple had to wrestle with, but we will never know. I think, under the circumstances, MS did alright. The company grew, they created more good paying jobs, and they survived the heyday of Linux and OSS incredibly well. Is Ballmer really a complete failure, just because shareholders aren't MS' top priority?

What Ballmer mainly lacks is a grand vision... but I think that is improving.

Your right, what Ballmer lacks is vision, Of course as an investor you want to see your investment grow. Yes Microsoft has been handcuffed while Google and Apple grew to be even bigger than the one that got handcuffed.

A good CEO knows what his or her strengths are. Getting up on stage is not one of them for this guy. He has made some good moves and he has made some really big zingers. his best move was a deal with Nokia. his worst move was not buying it. Leaving it Nokia running pure windows tablets and phones. The man has no vision! As for the stock for me it hovers between $26.00- $29.00 per share. Is it undervalued in some ways yes. Then it's not so much the price of the stock but the dividends that stock pays.

also you have to switch from the Metro-IE10 to the desktop version to see a video that is based on flash player... how annoying is that...

I don't use websites that require Flash anymore. Fortunately, most updated their codecs to H.264 and HTML 5 years ago -- thanks to Microsoft and Apple pushing HTML5 in modern browsing.

For legacy sites that haven't updated to HTML5 because the content isn't being updated anymore, there are legacy viewers on all major platforms (including WP) to "translate" the sites.

The switch from Flash to HTML5 will not be done by tomorrow

It's done already. YouTube, the largest video site, has switched. So have most other sites.

Flash is as relevant as BlackBerry 7... a legacy technology that most developers can ignore without a lot of risk. Even Adobe has abandoned development of the client on most platforms, and repositioned itself as a company focused on delivering HTML5 solutions.